So I'm not sure you've ever heard, but I've noticed that when the first of something ever comes out, you put everything you've got into it. In wine, that means your first wine you pull out all the stops and make the best wine you can hoping that you will develop a following from that first wine. How does that apply now? Well, this is issue Number 1 of my new blog posts "Wine Tasting Tell All."

So I felt compelled to try and write the best post possible, and one that would make everyone hang on my every word. My feeling though is that unless you have a spare cloths line, there isn't going to be anything hanging anywhere...

So I'm just going to do what I always do, just write down my thoughts and attempt to enlighten and amuse you. Not necessarily in that order.

My first thoughts about doing this were that I had to start writing down or taking notes at the tasting about things that were happening so I wouldn't forget. Paper and pen handy, I wrote small snippets to remind me of the goings on that I wanted to write about. How lucky I was on my first wine tasting post that the wine rep, Paula, from Daou Vineyards (see my last "Wine of the Week" post about Daou's Soul of a Lion, was at the tasting. That's quite a coincidence, but a good one. We talked a little about my post and her wines before we both got onto the tasting at hand. Interestingly, she had The Soul of a Lion available for the tasting, although it was the 2012 vintage, not 2014 that I reviewed. Both great, but for the record, 2014 was a slightly better wine in my opinion.

While I had a nice lineup of wines, the real standout was the 2013 Duckhorn Merlot from the Rutherford area of Napa Valley. What a great wine. 92 Points from Wine Spectator and to top it off they had it on sale at almost 15% off the regular price. Great wine - on sale, doesn't get much better.

As I get better at taking notes and determining what would constitute interesting fodder for this post, I was able to jot down one or two things that came up. I love doing tastings as they give me a chance to talk with the customers and see what kind of things might be on their minds. One such conversation came up when someone asked me and the other 2 reps pouring close at hand, which area do we favor for Pinot Noir. Santa Barbara or Santa Maria. Now in most cases, I try not to correct customers unless it's glaring. In this case, Santa Maria is actually part of the Santa Barbara region, specifically the Northern area. But I think he was trying to see if the Northern or Southern (closer to Santa Barbara City) would be our preference for Pinots. An interesting conversation ensued. For me, what I mentioned was "It all depends on the winery." A very political answer, not to give an answer. It is accurate though. It can be as much about "where" the grapes come from as the "who" is making the wine.

As is usually the case, I did run into a few folks that I have known for years. It's always nice to see a friendly and familiar face. I didn't think of this at the tasting, but I intend on taking some pictures in the future and posting them on this post as well. Sort of that personal touch.

I did take pictures of my wine lineup:

So I'm not going to say this is my finest work. Heck, I'm not even sure it ranks up there at all. But I like this idea and hope to make it even more interesting. Any suggestions, just drop me a line.